


Buried Feelings

by Morgana



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2730548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone deals with loss in their own way</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buried Feelings

They're waiting for him to fall apart. He knows it, can feel their eyes on him when they get together for one of their little meetings, can hear the hesitant tone in their voices and sense the way hands occasionally reach out to him and fall away without making contact, but he doesn't let on that he's aware of anything. What he doesn't know is why - do they somehow think it would make him more human, that some visible sign of mourning would make him more like them? If so, they're going to be waiting for a long, long time.

What do they really know about sorrow, anyway? What can they possibly know about love, when their lives are so tragically short? Even those that don't fall to fangs or monsters or car accidents, like most of these children will, even those that die in their beds surrounded by their little cookie-cutter families. They count themselves lucky to have forty or fifty years, so how can they ever hope to understand what it's like to spend a hundred and twenty years loving someone?

Love. It all comes back to that, doesn't it? He knows the humans think he's unique, that he's special and different and all that rot, because he loves, but it's not true. All demons love - it's just not what they think of as love. Human love is weak and pallid next to a demon's love, a deep sort of caring that's perfectly content to keep the two of you as separate beings. They have no idea what it's like to want your lover to consume you, to need them badly enough that you want to crawl inside their skin, to be jealous of every single thought or breath that isn't all about you, and those few that are somehow touched by it shy away and call it obsession, like it's something to be ashamed of.

Spike knows differently, though. He was created from a demon's love, his own boundless yearning for love filled up with blood and torture and sex, twisting and warping and molding him to his maker's demands until he couldn't tell where one left off and the other began. It was brutal and bloody, and he knows Red thinks he's some kind of 'survivor', like in the little groups they have around campus, where hollow-eyed girls talk about the (usually) human monsters that tore away at their spirits, and he doesn't bother to disillusion her of that notion. She wouldn't understand the call of blood or the ecstasy of union when the one taking you to his bed is your god, savior and creator and all in all. And she definitely wouldn't understand the kind of love that spans a century apart, filling you up to the brim even as it swirls through with bitter hatred.

None of them would, except maybe the Watcher. He seems like he's tasted demonic love once or twice, although Spike doubts he'd admit it. But even he doesn't seem to understand why Spike didn't really react to the news that his sire was dead. Buffy had dissolved into tears, collapsed on the floor of the Magic Box with the kind of heartrending sobs that seemed torn out of her soul, Red had shed a few tears of her own, and the boy... well, let's just say it was a good thing Angelus had never gotten to carry out his plans to turn him, because the victorious gleam in his eyes had been downright disturbing. They'd all been shocked, disbelieving, tearful and sadly accepting by turns, but not Spike. From the moment they'd heard, he'd continued on in much the same way as he always did, playing poker and drinking down at Willie's, going on patrol with the Slayer when she resumed her duties, and watching crap TV during the afternoon while letting the Bit wind him around her littlest finger with requests for sweets and help with her homework. He can't say no to her, and at least talking about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo beats thinking about Angel, and his stupid heroic death wish that eventually paid off.

He knows they think he's cold, that the loss of his sire should warrant an outpouring of grief instead of a shrug, that they're waiting for him to break and fall sobbing onto a sympathetic shoulder, dissolving into tears within an open embrace, and part of him wishes he could give it to them. But there aren't tears enough to fill the hole that Angel's death opened up inside him, and no amount of warm hugs can take away the cold that's settled deep into the very marrow of his bones. His sire is gone. Granted, he lost his sire over a hundred years ago, but always there was the thought that the two of them walked the same earth, as poncy and pathetic as that might be. Now, though... his sire's a pile of dust in an urn on a desk in LA, while Spike... isn't. He's left behind once more, this time without any chance of seeing that disapproving glower aimed at him again. His sire died hating him, thinking Spike hated him in turn, trying so hard to be human that he'd likely forgotten that hatred isn't just the other side of love for a demon, but part and parcel of the whole thing.

Of course, he isn't about to tell any of the humans that, either the Sunnydale lot or his sire's LA pets. Better they think he doesn't care than find out exactly how much he really does.


End file.
